The Case of the Yellow Flowers
by Closet-Basket-Case
Summary: When John and Mary are kidnapped, Sherlock must solve the case and save his friends, all while simultaneously caring for their toddler daughter, Olivia, who for some ridiculous reason has been left in his care: "I'm not fit." "Too bad." "It's a horrible environment for children." "Quite cozy, I think." "I have a head in my refrigerator." "An educational tool for children, really."


Sherlock Holmes would never admit it, but he was quite fond of the term "uncle." It was what he had been called ever since the birth of John's daughter, Olivia. The girl was a chubby little thing, somewhat off putting for the 'all angles' detective, but cute nonetheless. If you found that sort of thing "cute."

As of late though, she had started to grow up instead of out, though still retaining a good amount of baby fat. Even so, at four years old, she was entirely average. A little mop of dirty blonde hair sat on her head. In the morning, to Sherlock at least, it resembled the hair of a corpse. Of course John strongly protests this comparison, and Mary simply smiles at him and kisses his nose, as though he was a poodle.

And in the last four years, he had become sort of a pet to them. He played with the girl when he was asked. John would walk him when he had the time, and when he needed some time away from the estrogen in the house those walks became quite long. Mary doted on him, petted him, but never let him alone with her child. Sherlock was still, though somewhat more demure, Sherlock of course.

But back to the child.

She didn't particularly like Sherlock. He wasn't unpleasant in her eyes, as he could see, she just found him unusual. To her, he was a toy too complex for her to play with yet, so she would wait until she was a little bit older to try it out. Their time together consisted of emergency babysitting, in which Mary would constantly call to make sure she wasn't just watching TV. And in which John would constantly call to make sure Sherlock hadn't put any severed heads in the refrigerator. The latter happened more often than the former.

Sherlock and John still solved crimes. It was seldom, but it happened. They were still best friends, but now Mary considered herself also a friend of Sherlock. This was quite a shock to learn, and Sherlock needed some time to fully understand what it meant to have TWO friends.

It was almost unheard of.

And then he was an uncle. He was an uncle and had two friends. He would sometimes sit at his study and contemplate that statement. This is what he was doing when he received a phone call, the very phone call that started what was to be a very, very interesting year for Sherlock Holmes.

"What is it?" Replied the voice on the telephone. Jennifer had dreaded making this call, knowing who was on the other line. She could never deal with Livy's uncle, but he was also the girl's godfather, so when the parents didn't show, he was who she had to call.

"Mary hasn't picked up Livy yet." She answered him.

"Who?" Jennifer could hear the man's face scrunch up on the other side of the phone.

She sighed. "Olivia, the daughter of John and Mary Watson, has not been picked up from school by her mother, Mary Watson, who usually picks her up on Thursdays." She told the man. After 6 months of listening to his questions on the telephone, she had learned how to condense the information to his liking.

"Ah yes, well, where are they?" He replied. Sherlock began to examine tips of his fingers. This was a waste of his time.

She sighed again. "I don't know, they haven't called."

Sherlock sat upright in his chair very suddenly, looked sternly at the clock on the wall, then stood up. "They always call." He told her.

"Not today." The third sigh. This man was a monster. She desperately wanted to get off the phone with him.

"Not today?" He asked angrily. "Not today, not today … NOT TODAY." He repeated. He began to walk back and forth. He stopped. "They always call."

"Well they didn't call TODAY," Jennifer told him, examining the faults in her manicure.

Sherlock looked at the phone in his hand, then hung it up. He grabbed his jacket, swung it around his shoulders, and began down his stairs.

"Where are you off to Sherlock?" Mrs. Hudson asked, coming slightly out of her rooms to see Sherlock off.

"They didn't call!" He answered, slamming the door behind him as he walked off.

He then began to think. Mary and John had never not called in the one and a half years since the child started nursery. They had been a total of 18 times that neither Mary nor John could pick her up, all of which they had called the school about before hand. 10 of those instances were work related, 4 due to traffic, 3 consisted of small family emergencies, and the outlying 1 consisted of that half an incident where Sherlock may have gotten John slightly more arrested by the police than he had anticipated. _As of now_ , thought Sherlock, there are no major accidents, though traffic is slow, Mary would have anticipated that. The fact that the teacher called meant she could not get a hold of John either, so both most likely did not have their cell phones. Unlikely, today is a school day, why would they not carry their phones? What are the chances of both of them forgetting them at home? Non existent. John is a doctor that's his life, Mary is a mother. The phones had to be taken at some point, when they were together is more likely. John is working why would they be together…

 _Unless they were taken separately._

Taken? Kidnapping. Unlikely. No motive, there is the work but no major cases. Mary's side then? No, no not that. Both out of service, both together, underground? The tube. More likely. Mary and John on the Tube, no service, together. No they should be out by now, they would have contacted the teacher who would have called me. Pick pocketed? But why were they together? No they weren't together it was too unlikely.

He was at the school at this point. He looked up. The building was completely unsubstantial, the idea that they enriched the minds of children here was incomprehensible to Sherlock, not that he was much for children. And luckily for him, there didn't seem to be any around as he walked down the halls and made his way to the office where he was meant to pick up Olivia.

And there she was, that child, sitting on a wooden bench outside the office. She was brushing the head of a fabric doll in her hand, humming to herself quietly.

"Lets go." Sherlock told her. She looked up at him. The man was tall, especially to her, but never scary. She tipped her head to the side like a dog when its confused. She looked down the hall to her left, then right, and then sat her gaze back at Sherlock. Finally, without saying a word she jumped off the bench walked up to Sherlock and grabbed his hand.

"Okay." She said. Sherlock sighed. He was never fond of hand holding, but for some reason all children insisted on it.

"Where do you think you're going?" asked Jennifer, who had just come out of the office.

"I do believe you just called for me to pick her up, did you not?" He told her, continuing to walk towards the door with Olivia. Jennifer trotted to keep up with them, holding out a clipboard.

"Mr. Holmes you know you have to sign her out!" She told him.

"I deleted it." And with that Sherlock left the school with Olivia, and Jennifer resigned herself to forge his signature. Again.

"Where's mommy?" Asked Olivia, walking a little faster than she would have liked to keep up with the long strides of her uncle.

"I don't know."

"Where's daddy?"

"I don't know."

Olivia tugged on Sherlock's hand once, indicating she had something to ask him. "Do you know what kind of flower is yellow?"

"Thousands." He didn't look down at her; his gaze was set on the front door of Mary and John's town house. Olivia followed Sherlock's gaze, then looked back to him. She tipped her head again, examining him.

"Are you doing your de- duc-ing?" She asked him, taking her time to sound the whole word out so as to get it correct. Sherlock looked down at her, then back to the door.

"When you do that- that thing, it means something bad has happened." Olivia brought her doll up to her face and examined it. "I think someone else played with Molly today." She told Sherlock.

"Molly." He stated.

"My doll." Olivia told him. She held it up for him to see. "Her hair seems funny." Sherlock examined the doll. There seemed to be an oily residue in its hair. There was no residue on the girl's hands.

"You're right, there's jam in its hair." Back to the door. It was slightly open.

It was open. The door was open. Either someone left it open in a hurry, or someone broke in, the lock is broken - the door didn't close correctly. Olivia continued to examine her doll, tightening her grip on Sherlock's hand. "The door is open." She told Sherlock, without lifting her head from her doll. Her grip tightened even more and her brow furrowed. She shook out her almost but not quite curls and tugged on Sherlock's hand. She tugged again, there was no reaction, so she stood quietly and let him do his de-duc-ing.

"De-duc-ing." She practiced saying. "De-DUCE." The word tasted funny. She looked back up at Sherlock. He was on the phone now, talking to a man she thought. Whenever he talked to a lady he seemed exasperated.

"-she's with me," Olivia caught that snippet, assuming she was the "she" Sherlock was talking about. She tugged Sherlock's hand.

"Who's on the phone?" She asked him.

"Gavin." He told her.

" _My name is GREG!"_ She heard the man on the other end of the telephone say.

"Since when has it been Greg?" asked Sherlock.

" _It's always been Greg you tall slice of-of… crazy!"_ Then the conversation became confusing again and Olivia stopped listening. The door was open. This was quite obviously a very big deal to her uncle. She tried to think of all the things that it could mean. The door was never left open, and Sherlock was de-duc-ing, so she knew at least it meant a bad thing. She tipped her head from side to side, playing with her half-curls, then she did the same to Molly, but her hair was straight so it didn't have the same effect. She looked up, Sherlock was still on the phone, she struggled to grasp the meaning of everything he said, but it was useless, he was talking too fast and everything kind of morphed together.

"Gavin is coming with some officers, until then we have to wait." Sherlock told her. She looked around, during the conversation it seemed uncle had taken her away from the front door into another yard.

"His name is Greg." She told him, she yanked on his hand. "Why can't we go inside?"

Sherlock shook his head hard, scrunched his face, and growled. "Because apparently _'leaving a child alone in a yard and going inside a home to look for intruders is UNACCEPTABLE behavior'_ " Sherlock mocked in slow voice. "Unacceptable, HE'S unacceptable!"

Olivia felt she needed to agree with this statement, so she shook her head 'yes.' She heard sirens approaching down the street.

Olivia Watson knew that sirens meant bad things.


End file.
